


Amplification

by boombangbing



Series: Amplification [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Character Study, Depression, F/M, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Super Soldier Serum, discussion of suicide, past suicide attempts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-10-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 14:10:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boombangbing/pseuds/boombangbing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce, rather than Tony, was and kind of still is a huge fan of Captain America. Steve doesn't know this, however, and inadvertently says something that causes Bruce's barely controlled depression to spiral out of control. Set immediately after IM3, and uses an idea introduced in Agents of SHIELD 1x01.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amplification

The first thing Tony does when Bruce gets to Stark Tower is unbutton his shirt and exclaim, 'look at the scar!'. Bruce grimaces but still ends up leaning in a bit and studying it. Tony has, unsurprisingly, had some pretty good reconstructive surgery, so the damage to where the arc reactor used to be is minimal, but the skin still looks tight and thin and there are angry red lines running across his chest reminiscent of heart surgery.

“What about your ribs?” he asks.

“Polytetrafluoroethylene mesh and titanium,” Tony says, knocking his knuckles against the pink skin. “You can touch it if you want.”

Bruce wrinkles his nose. “No, thanks.”

Tony grins and starts buttoning up his shirt. “Rhodey doesn't like it either. Pepper doesn't mind, though.”

“Is she... okay?” The whole situation got on TV, Tony's house destroyed, Tony missing, Pepper Potts missing, the _President_ missing, things getting blown up, and something called 'Extremis'. Bruce decided that he should come back to New York after watching it develop on the news, at least for a little while. He's not really sure why – Tony must have all sorts of people to support him – but it felt like the right thing to do.

Tony's face gets kind of soft and pensive. “She's fine now.” He sucks on his teeth for a moment, before rolling his shoulders and glancing up at Bruce's shorn hair. “What happened to all those luscious curls of yours?”

“Oh, uh...” He rubs at the back of his head and clears his throat. “What would you say if I told you I got lice?”

Tony narrows his eyes. “I'd laugh uproariously and bring it up in the most inappropriate situations.”

“Then I just wanted a change,” Bruce says, and smiles.

“Okay,” Tony says, quirking an eyebrow. “Want something to drink? I've got _lots_ to tell you.”

-

Bruce has an apartment now, apparently. He discovers this after falling asleep twice while Tony's telling him his life story in excruciating detail, and Tony eventually taking pity on him and taking him up to somewhere he can sleep properly. He doesn't really take in the place until the next morning, when he wakes up spread diagonally across the biggest bed he's ever seen.

The place is huge, with a huge open plan kitchen/living room, a study, a bathroom and separate wet room, and a couple of bedrooms. There are clean clothes laid out on the couch that aren't his, and the kitchen is fully stocked with teas, coffee, hot chocolate, every kind of condiment, and all the basics. There's a piece of paper held on the fridge with a magnet that reads:

> Hotel Stark:  
>  Wake up call available  
>  Maid service as requested  
>  Grocery deliveries three times a week and by request  
>  SWEET LABS ON THE SEVENTIETH FLOOR  
>  Robot butler

Bruce puts up some resistance to it all for a couple of days, but after a week of luxury living he kind of just gives up and settles in. Tony takes him to his own personal stylist to tidy up Bruce's uneven hair, and then out to lunch, and then presents Bruce with a tenancy agreement, which Bruce ends up signing with fingers greasy from the burger he's eating. The deal is Bruce works for Stark Industries and his rent is deducted from his pay cheque.

“Delivery!” Tony calls from outside Bruce's front door while Bruce is figuring out the TV. There's a lot of crap, but the movie channels look interesting. He hasn't watched a movie in years.

“Coming,” he says, and switches the TV off before going over to let Tony in.

“Hello,” Tony sing-songs and barges straight past him with a pallet stacked high with packing boxes. 

“What's all this?” Bruce asks, closing the door behind him. Tony starts unstacking them, grimacing as he lifts an apparently heavy box. Bruce wonders how long his doctors told him not to put any strain on his chest muscles. “Hey, let me do that,” he says, jumping forward and slotting his fingers in the hand holds of the box, taking it from Tony.

“I can do it, you know,” Tony says irritably.

“No, you can't,” Bruce replies mildly. He looks at the lid of the box, at familiar writing that says, 'childhood stuff'. He frowns and looks up at Tony.

Tony holds up a hand. “I _might_ have called a certain Elizabeth Ross and asked if she had any of your stuff.”

Bruce looks back down at the lid. “She... she kept all this crap?”

Tony smiles. “I think she kept everything.”

Bruce swallows past an obstruction in his throat and puts the box down on the floor. Underneath it, the next box has 'books' written on it, and underneath that, 'university stuff' and 'photos'. Tears prickle at his eyes.

“Um,” he murmurs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I'm just gonna... go to the bathroom...”

“Sure,” Tony says.

When Bruce comes back out ten minutes later, Tony doesn't comment on his blotchy cheeks, just hops up from where he's been leaning against the arm of the couch and grins.

“Can I snoop? I really want to snoop! Let me snoop, Bruce, please!”

Bruce chuckles wetly and wipes a hand over his face. “Go on.”

Tony pounces on the box of university stuff first, pulling out a cap and gown and rummaging through the rest of it. “Summa cum laude,” he says, holding up Bruce's bachelor degree. “Figures.”

“As if you weren't as well,” Bruce says.

“Yeah, but I was cool in college, so they cancelled each other out.”

Bruce raises his eyebrows. “Weren't you fourteen when you went to MIT? You weren't cool.”

“Excuse me!” Tony exclaims, poking Bruce in the leg. “I was the coolest, thank you very much.”

Bruce shakes his head and heads towards the kitchen. “No one's cool when they're fourteen. Coffee?”

“You're just projecting! Three sugars, please.”

When he comes back with the coffee, Tony is sitting on the floor, looking through the box marked 'photos'. “I can see where you got your devastating good looks from,” he says.

Bruce narrows his eyes, first at the sarcastic remark, then at the meaning behind it. There should _not_ be any photos of his father in there, he's pretty sure he burnt them all by the time he was thirteen, and if Tony's found a stray one, Bruce really doesn't want to see it. 

He kneels down beside Tony, puts the coffee cup next to him, and casts a nervous glance at the photograph in Tony's hand.

“That's my mother,” he says in surprise.

“That's what I figured,” Tony says. “She's beautiful.”

“Yes, she was,” Bruce says, maybe a little sharply, and pulls the photo out of Tony's hand.

Tony squints at him for a moment, perhaps noting the past tense. “I wasn't being facetious, by the way,” he says, “you're a handsome guy.”

Bruce squints back. “Sure...”

“I mean it!”

“Aren't you dating someone?”

Tony grins. “You think an awful lot of yourself, huh?”

Bruce smiles back and picks up another envelope of photos. It's absorbing, looking through all these old photographs. The majority are from after his mother died, and although his childhood couldn't have been deemed 'happy' by any stretch of the imagination, with some distance he does find himself smiling at some of the little memories, winning awards at school, going to science camp, wearing a terrible, ill-fitting tux to prom. He's so absorbed, in fact, that he doesn't notice which boxes Tony's moved on to, until Tony lets out a cackle of laughter.

Bruce starts and looks up. “What? Oh Jesus, what did you find?”

“The _motherload_ ,” Tony says, and reaches into a box, pulling out a stack of... plastic-bagged comics. He spreads out like a fan, the cover of each reading, _Captain America_.

“Oh God,” Bruce mutters, shuffling over to Tony. “Don't...” he tries, but Tony has already returned to the box, sifting through the contents again and pulling out another stack.

“How many of these do you _have_?” Tony asks, eyes lit up with laughter.

“I dunno. Probably... probably a few more boxes' worth.”

“Oh my God,” Tony says. “And you've got them all bagged and boarded like a good little collector.”

Bruce shrugs, trying his hardest not to blush.

“You were a big fan, huh?” Tony asks, a smile playing around his lips.

“I...” He shrugs again. “Skinny loser turns into a superhero and beats the bullies spoke to me as a kid, I guess...”

Tony nods thoughtfully. “I could never get into it, myself. I preferred _Judge Dredd_. Hey, you should get Steve to sign one of these!”

Bruce shakes his head. “No, and don't tell him about them, okay?”

“Why not?”

“Because...” He stuffs his hands in his pockets. “It's embarrassing. It'll just embarrass both of us.”

“It's not embarrassing, lots of people read these things!”

Bruce shakes his head again. “Just... don't, okay?”

Tony clicks his tongue, giving Bruce a hard stare for a second. “Okay. You know, they've started putting _Captain America_ out again, since all the... excitement.”

“I know,” Bruce says. “They're nowhere near as good as they used to be.”

-

A few weeks after he moves in, Tony invites him up to the penthouse for dinner. Bruce has already met Pepper a couple of times, but only in passing, because she seems to always be busy. Tonight, however, he's going to be spending hours in her company, and he can't help but feel awkward about it.

“Are you sure you're okay with this?” he asks, as Pepper touches up her make up on the couch. Tony's gone off into the kitchen to get drinks, leaving them alone, and Bruce doesn't know what to do with himself, so he just hovers nearby.

“Hm?” Pepper responds, dabbing a tissue to a smudge of eyeliner at the corner of her eye. “Okay with what?”

“You know, me just... moving in all of a sudden? I didn't mean to, it just, uh, happened.”

She turns and looks at him, frowning. “Dr Banner, sit down.”

“Bruce,” he murmurs, shuffling over to sit down beside her.

She smiles. “Bruce. Of course I'm okay about you moving in. Don't you think Tony asked me about it beforehand?”

“Well, from what I know about Tony...”

“Point. But in this case, he did. You saved his life, Bruce, it's the least we can do.”

He shakes his head. “I didn't save his life.”

“Well, the Hulk, then,” she says, “but it's all the same to me.”

“Yeah but he only... shocked him. If Captain Rogers had been able to do chest compressions on him, he'd have saved Tony.”

She shrugs. “But he didn't. You did.”

Bruce runs his hand over his hair – it's strange not having all the curls to press his fingers into any more. “Well...”

“He's coming tonight, actually.”

“Who?”

She smiles. “Captain Rogers.”

He blinks. “Oh, I thought it was just the... three of us?”

“Tony didn't tell you?” She leans her head back and yells in the direction of the kitchen, “You didn't tell him?”

“Oops,” comes the reply.

She sighs and straightens up. “It's just Captain Rogers and Rhodey. We haven't planned your debutante ball, don't worry.”

He chuckles. “Rhodey's... Iron Patriot, right?”

She purses her lips. “Not any more, and don't bring it up with Tony, it's a hot button issue for him.”

“Oh, okay. Why?”

“He thinks it's a stupid name and a terrible paint job.”

“Don't talk about that travesty in my presence,” Tony announces, a couple of wine glasses in his hands.

“See?” Pepper says with a smile, taking the offered glass.

“I see,” Bruce murmurs. Tony tries to hand the other glass to Bruce and he shakes his head. “Oh, I don't drink, sorry.”

Tony immediately whisks it from Bruce's view, back into the kitchen, and returns with a glass bottle of lemonade. “Lemonade okay?”

Bruce takes the bottle. “Yeah, thanks, Tony.”

“Sir, your guests have arrived,” JARVIS announces.

Tony tuts. “Military types, they're always on time.”

The elevator door slides open on Captain Rogers and a slightly starstruck looking Rhodey a couple of minutes later.

“ _Tony_ ,” he says, frowning hard at him, “you didn't tell me that Captain-- Steve was coming.”

“Well, now you know,” Tony says, waving them in. “Hey, Captain Steve.”

The corner of Steve's mouth quirks up for a moment. “Hey,” he says, before his gaze drifts to Bruce. He tips his head to one side slightly. “Hey, Dr Banner, I didn't know you were going to be here.”

“Apparently no one knew anyone was going to be here,” Pepper mutters, handing her half empty glass to Tony before turning and leaving the room.

“Bruce,” Bruce says by rote. “Yeah, I'm... living here at the moment.”

Steve looks surprised for a second, before his face goes curiously blank. “Hey, that's great,” he says.

Bruce nods, and shifts on the spot. He tries to catch Tony's eye, but Tony is completely unaware, messing around at the bar, mixing drinks.

“So, you're...?” Rhodey says, holding out his hand.

“Bruce,” he says, shaking Rhodey's hand. When that doesn't seem to mean anything to him, Bruce adds, “Banner.” Rhodey narrows his eyes slightly. “Uh, the Hulk...” Bruce amends.

“Oh!” Rhodey says. “Right, okay... Cool.”

“Did you know,” Tony says loudly, coming back over to them and throwing his arm around Rhodey's shoulders, “that Rhodey here is a _huge_ fan of Captain Steve?”

“Let it go,” Rhodey warns, shooting an irritated glance at Tony. Tony crosses his eyes and sticks out his tongue.

“Anyway, he is. He has, like, _hundreds_ of your comics, all lovingly preserved.” He quirks an eyebrow at Bruce, and Bruce has to stop himself from rolling his eyes.

“Oh, well...” Steve crosses his arms over his chest and looks at his feet for a second. “That's... flattering?”

“You should get one of 'em signed, Rhodey!” Tony says, jostling Rhodey. Rhodey scowls back and shakes his head at Steve, like, _I'm sorry he's like this_. Bruce chuckles and wanders over to the couch.

“Your earliest is from, what, 1975?” Tony asks Rhodey obnoxiously. Bruce smiles to himself; his earliest is from 1973.

“Supper is served,” JARVIS announces.

Pepper thaws out pretty quickly once everyone starts eating – her and Tony's relationship seems to be based on a constant up and down flow of bickering and affection. Issues come and go at a dizzying speed, and they both act as if it's a perfectly normal way to behave. Whereas Bruce took the 'never argue, always bottle up your feelings, don't rock the boat' approach with Betty, but then look how that turned out.

While they eat their very fancy fish, Tony regales them with, what else, the Mandarin story. Pepper rolls her eyes, Bruce groans softly, and Rhodey says, “You know I was there, right?”

“But Steve wasn't!” Tony insists. “You want to hear about it, don't you, Steve.” It's not even phrased as a question.

Steve smiles politely. “Sure.”

Forty five minutes later – Bruce checks his watch multiple times under the table – Tony finally gets to his favourite part: “And then she swung _a pipe_ at him and he went _flying_.”

Pepper's cheeks pink a little and she clears her throat. “Why don't we move this to the living room?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Rhodey says, grabbing his glass of wine and standing up, shooting a glance at Tony, who's still in full flow with his story, though only Steve is listening now, somewhat tiredly.

“So, Steve,” Pepper says loudly when they get into the living room, cutting Tony off mid stream, “how's the twenty first century working out for you?”

Steve looks caught for a minute, glancing between a smiling Pepper and an irritated Tony. “It's... okay. Getting better.”

“Hey, can I ask you a question?” Rhodey says suddenly.

“Uh.” Steve narrows his eyes a little. “Sure.”

“Were you really the only super soldier that was...” He pulls a face. “Made? Sorry, that's probably not a good way of putting it.”

Steve shifts. “I'm, uh. Sort of.” He looks at Bruce, and then everyone's looking at Bruce. 

Bruce fidgets for a moment, then lays his hands on his knees. “Um. Technically I'm-- or Hulk's-- a super soldier.”

“Really?” Tony says, practically bouncing in his seat. “You didn't tell me _that_!”

“It didn't come up.”

“So, wait,” Rhodey says, leaning forward, “I thought the Hulk was because of... gamma radiation?”

“It... was, but we were using the radiation to... stabilise Dr Eskine's formula.”

“So, you knew you were making super soldiers?” Tony asks, frowning a little.

“No, we... we weren't told what we were creating,” Bruce says slowly, dropping his gaze to the floor.

Pepper gets up and starts collecting empty glasses, interrupting the awkward flow of conversation for a moment. “We have chocolate ice cream, if anyone wants some.” There's a chorus of agreement, and she looks at Bruce, a small smile on her face. “Bruce, could you come help me dish up?”

“Sure,” he says, hurrying after her as she sets a brisk pace.

When they get to the kitchen, she turns to him apologetically. “I'm sorry, that wasn't very subtle but I thought you might want a break.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

She smiles again and moves over to the fridge. “Rhodey's a lot more tactful than Tony, most of the time, but they are best friends, so obviously something attracted them to each other...”

“It's fine,” he says. “Where do you keep the bowls?”

When they come back out with a couple of trays of ice cream, Steve is saying, “...way Erskine explained it to me, it, uh, amplifies the person you already...” and trails off before Bruce even enters the room. 

Pepper looks at him and he blinks and smiles, and goes in as if he hadn't heard a word Steve said.

-

The evening ends shortly after, with awkward goodbyes and Steve not quite keeping eye contact with Bruce. Pepper tries to talk to him afterwards, with Tony kind of hovering in the background, but Bruce just smiles and excuses himself to bed.

It's not like he didn't already know that he wasn't like Steve. The first time he saw Steve in action he thought, 'oh, so that's what was meant to happen'. But hey, it was an act of God and bad science that made Bruce the way he is. That's what he thought.

That let the bitter pill slide down his throat a little easier.

When he gets back into his room, he pulls off his clothes and leaves them in a heap on the floor, then walks over to the boxes full of comic books piled up in the corner of the living room, serving as an embarrassing but, until today, comforting memory of the past. He pulls off the lid of the first box and digs around inside it, pulling out an issue, a _Captain America_ #1 reprint he got when he was seven. It was his most prized possession for years.

He peels back the old, dried up tape keeping the bag closed and slides it out. He hasn't handled this in a good twenty years. He flicks through pages that feel fragile under his fingers – were they always this fragile? – until he lights on a particular panel.

_Who is Captain America? A whole nation thrills to his daring exploits! His name becomes a symbol of courage to millions of Americans..._

Bruce wonders what Hulk's name is a symbol for.

-

He has a dream that night. Bruce is used to dreams and nightmares and night terrors, blood and guts and screaming, but this one's calm, almost silent, just his father saying, 'You were always a monster'.

He walks up in a cold sweat.

-

When Tony walks into the lab that he's given Bruce access to, Bruce has been up for four hours, researching. He barely looks up when he hears Tony's footsteps, and Tony stays silent for a few minutes as Bruce continues to work. Maybe he'll go away.

“Hey, Bruce, can we talk?”

Or maybe not.

He looks up from the computer. “It's not like I could stop you.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “What a nice, inviting way to start a conversation.” Bruce tips his head to one side and Tony sighs. “Look, I know you heard what Steve said last night.”

Bruce blinks, keeping his face blank. “Said what?”

“Bruce, Pepper heard him, so unless you're going deaf, there's no way you didn't hear him too.” He eyeballs him for a moment, while Bruce remains passive. “Okay, look, Steve's a smart enough guy, but he's no scientist – Erskine was probably just explaining it in a way he could understand or, shit, maybe Steve just completely misunderstood. The way he talks about the serum, it was some kind of magic, when both you and I know that it was radiation and massive amounts of steroids and hormones. This 'true nature' bullshit is some kind of Disneyfied crap.”

Bruce nods. “It's okay, I've heard worse said about me.”

Tony's lips thin out and he crosses his arms over his chest. “But he _didn't_ say it about you, and you could tell that the moment he said it he knew it was crap. It's like, sometimes you have to say things out loud before you realise how ridiculous they are.”

“Tony, you're more upset about this than I am. I'm fine.”

Tony looks unconvinced. “You sure?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he says, forcing a smile.

“Okay... wanna come get something to eat?”

Bruce keeps smiling. “Maybe later, I already had breakfast.” When Tony doesn't seem convinced by this, Bruce smiles wider. “We'll go to that expensive place you like.”

“Okay...” Tony says, shifting on the spot. “I guess I'll be paying for that, huh?”

Bruce shrugs and laughs, looking back down at his computer. It takes another couple of minutes of loitering before Tony leaves, and when the door closes behind him, Bruce lets out a shuddery breath. 

“JARVIS, please lock the door.”

“Yes, Dr Banner.”

-

Steve doesn't have much relating to Dr Erskine. Erskine's wife and children had died before him, so his personal effects were left to the army who, over the years, 'lost' almost all of it. All Steve managed to recover, after repeatedly harassing Fury about it, was a collection of notes, written in a mixture of messy English and German. 

Steve can't make out much of either language, most of it is fancy science terminology that he wouldn't understand even if he could read it. Bruce would be able to explain it to him.

He sighs and flips over the page. There are equations scribbled across the paper, along with sentences like, _the choice of candidate is essential; if chosen wrongly the consequences could be – and have been – catastrophic_.

Catastrophic. That seems like kind of a good word for the Hulk. A one... man... wrecking crew, fuelled by anger, indifferent to most outside forces. The opposite of what Erskine wanted. Erskine would have been horrified to know that the serum – or a jacked up version of it, at least – had had such a destructive influence. Yet Steve thinks Erskine would have liked Bruce, his quiet mannerisms and world weary demeanour.

But he still wasn't the man to take the serum. Whatever's inside Bruce... It wasn't meant for the serum.

Steve sighs and slaps the file closed. Hell, it's not like there's much point dwelling on stuff that can't be undone. All he can do is manage the present, if the Avengers ever become a steady unit.

And hope that Bruce's new living arrangement pans out for all involved.

-

“So, Dad's spear-heading this new project,” Betty said, dropping her hands on Bruce's shoulders as he stirred the pasta. She pressed a kiss to the back of his head and came around into his view, pulling herself up to sit on the counter near him.

“Oh yeah?” he said, glancing up at her.

“Yeah. And they're looking for a physicist...”

“Uh _huh_ ,” he said, adding some more oil to the pan. “A physicist that your father doesn't think is living off his daughter, I'd guess.”

She sighed and shook her head. “He's... in his own fucked up way he thinks he's looking out me, even though if he actually engaged his brain he'd know that you're the best thing that's ever happened to me.” 

She leant forward and slipped her hand over Bruce's cheek as she spoke, and Bruce sighed and pressed a kiss to her palm. He knew that the likelihood of Thaddeus Ross ever liking him was approaching nil, and maybe it isn't so much because Ross thought he was a no-good, unemployed guy with a checkered past who was living off Betty – even though it was clear that he did think all those things – but that Bruce was _weak_.

Bruce was _so weak_ ; he knew it, Ross knew it, Betty'd deny it but know it deep down inside. Once, when Betty insisted on bringing Bruce home for Thanksgiving when they were in college, Ross towered over him in the hallway and said, 'I know what your father is and I know what you are', and Bruce, he fucking _cowered_ away, that familiar bolt of fear tearing through him, that immediate impulse to make himself small, insignificant, easily over-looked. That impulse that got his mother killed and made Bruce hate himself. Ross had sneered at him, and Bruce knew that he was never going to good enough.

“He says that they need a biologist too,” she added, nudging Bruce's shoulder. “They're studying the effects of radiation...”

“Radiation?”

She smiled, her whole face lighting up, and his breath thinned out for a moment. “See, I knew you'd be interested. And hey, we haven't worked together since senior year at Harvard.”

“Not scientifically, anyway,” he said, and raised his eyebrows. She grinned back.

“So, you'll think about it?”

He shrugged. “Sure, it can't hurt.”

-

Tony insists on keeping Bruce to his word about lunch. Bruce dodges it for a few days, burying himself in pointless work and research that wastes his time quite effectively, but Tony catches him eventually and drags him out to a fancy restaurant where Bruce feels awkward and exposed. People stare at them while they eat and take pictures and Bruce knows that no one's interested in _him_ , but he still feels like someone is going to recognise him, come up to him and tell him how he destroyed their home or killed their spouse or... or...

He makes it through a quarter of his chicken salad before he has to bail, bolting out of the restaurant, his windpipe closing up on him. He stumbles to the car and slams his hands on the hood, sucking in a few deep breaths that do little to clear his dizzy head.

Tony strolls out a couple of minutes later with two boxes in his hands, and unlocks the car. “You're right,” he says, pulling the passenger side door open and gesturing to Bruce to get in. “No ambiance in there at all.”

Bruce stares back out him, blinking rapidly, and Tony's face softens into pensiveness. 

“Get in the car, Bruce,” he says quietly.

He doesn't eat the boxed up salad when he gets back. He tries to, but the taste and texture of it makes him want to puke. He's still hungry though, so he excuses himself to his apartment and pulls out all the junk food that's in there – and that's a lot, Tony is equally fond of astronomically expensive dining as he is with stuff that doesn't have enough organic material to technically be termed as 'food' – and sits on the floor and stuffs his face.

His boxes of comics are still stacked up in a corner of the living room, abandoned there until he can decide what to do with them. It's stupid to even keep them, artefacts of a miserable child, a childish, pointless pursuit.

He stares at them for a few minutes, eating Nutella from the tub, standing by the door from the kitchen to the living room. He could burn them, sell them, just toss them in the trash, but he feels stuck to the spot, with a spoonful of Nutella in his mouth.

Finally, he sighs heavily and walks over to the boxes, flipping the lid off the closest. There's chocolate on his fingers that smears on the white cardboard and he sticks them in his mouth, licking them clean, then wipes them on his pant leg and pulls out a comic at random.

_He's the people's choice, Captain America for president!_

Bruce snorts, staring down at Cap's smiling face on the cover, then starts laughing. God, he loved this stupid comic. He loved the idea that someone so small and weak could save the world, or even just one person; that someone big and strong could use that power for good, could _be_ a good person. He told himself that when _he_ grew up, _he'd_ be big and strong and he'd take his mom away from their falling down little house and make lots of money and give her everything she wanted. He'd be just like Captain America.

But he was _never_ going to be like Captain America. He's always known that, probably. Maybe you just can't live the way he lived and be a good person at the close. He isn't pure and clean like Steve, he's the furthest thing from it.

He's not laughing any more, he realises, because it's really not that goddamn funny; he's crying, tears rolling down his cheeks, his nose running, his chest tightening up until he can barely draw breath. He drops the comic and the tub, and stumbles over to the couch, almost tripping over onto the soft, plush cushions.

He doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve all these nice things, all these nice _people_.

“Oh God,” he sobs, burying his face in the couch cushion.

-

The first time he considered suicide, he was six. He didn't really _consider_ it like he would when he was older, but he did wonder if it wouldn't be better if he wasn't around. Better for him, and better for his mom. His dad was always so angry with Bruce there...

When Bruce was fifteen, his uncle declared that he was too difficult to handle and sent him back to the group home, where Bruce quickly managed to acquire a bottle of vodka and a bottle of sleeping pills. There were only a few sleeping pills left, though, but he was pretty sure that if he washed them down with the entire bottle of vodka, _something_ would happen. He wasn't really trying to kill him, but he wasn't trying to not kill himself, either. He spent most of the night emptying his guts in an out of the way bathroom, and somehow managed to stumble in for breakfast the next morning. Nobody noticed that anything was wrong.

He didn't think about it for a long time after that. College was the bright spot in his life that practically blinded him. Even after everything happened, he held on for a few years, with Betty as his goal – getting back their crappy apartment and their failed attempts at cooking and their regular discussions about whether they should get a cat or not. And he got so close to it... it was like a physical pain having to torn away from him, and for the first time ever, he actually thought _I am going to kill myself_.

But Hulk had other plans, and now Bruce doesn't have anything to look forward to, possibly not even his eventual death.

-

He doesn't leave his apartment for four days. Well, why should he? He has all sorts of food, and a bed, and running water. Living like a king, practically. Tony comes by a couple of times, but Bruce just fakes a sniffle and tells Tony he's sick. Tony doesn't believe him, that's clear, but he doesn't call him on it, either.

He doesn't really shower very much, or change out of the sweatpants and t-shirt that he wears to bed. He does his teeth, sort of, but he doesn't really want to look at himself in the mirror that much. He hasn't shaved in a couple of days, which translates into short beard, and his hair is growing out strangely and with considerably more grey than before. He's put on weight since he's come here, and he can see it in his face, when he looks. It would probably help if he stopped eating so much pizza and ice cream, but he doesn't have anything else to do with his time.

He should really just leave, that'd be better for everyone. He's left so many places, it's not like he doesn't know how.

Instead, he stays in his luxury apartment, eats and sleeps and looks at those stupid fucking comic books. He should just toss them out the window and forget all the nights he stayed up with a blanket over his head and a flashlight in hand, all the issues he lost to his father's rages, until he found a good enough hiding place (under a loose floorboard in the kitchen that his mom showed him).

But he doesn't do that. He doesn't do anything at all.

-

Sometimes Aunt Susan would let Bruce go over to Aunt Elaine's house. Her husband, Morris, didn't like Bruce much at all, but he'd only glare at him, and Bruce was used to that already. Still, he liked going over there because Jennifer had lots of toys and she'd watch Captain America cartoons with him. She was five and he was almost ten, but she was the first friend he ever had.

“ _Gosh, Steve, why are you so against taking a rest?_ ” Bucky asked on the screen.

“ _Because the Red Skull and his leader never rest in their evil efforts to conquer the free world, and I can't rest as long as they are free to continue their ruthless tyranny,_ ” Cap replied, and Bruce mouthed the words along with him. He'd seen this episode like ten times already.

“Bruce,” Jen said, poking him in the side. He waved her off, trying to concentrate on the show, even though he knew every word. “Bruuuce,” she whined, poking him harder.

“What?” he asked irritably.

She held up her slightly tortured Barbie. “Will you play dolls with me?”

He pulled a face. “Do I _have_ to?”

Her eyes went wide and her lip wobbled. “You don't _have_ to,” she said quietly.

Bruce looked at the TV and sighed. Captain America would play with her. “Fine. Who do I get?”

She passed him a doll with sheared off hair and a bent arm. “This is Skipper, she's a new clear physicalist.”

-

“Bruce! Bruce, you think I can't get this door open if I want to? If you're dead in there, I swear to God...” Tony yells through the door.

Bruce groans and pulls his blanket over his head. Tony's shouting continues, and Bruce regrets falling asleep on the couch. It'd be much quieter in the bedroom.

Tony starts hammering on the door instead, and Bruce knows Tony's about to override the lock and let himself in, but he can't be bothered to get up and save himself from at least a little humiliation.

The door opens a minute later, just like Bruce thought, and Tony stomps into the room. 

“Why's it so dark in here?” he mutters, and Bruce hears him pulling curtains open and flipping light switches on. Bruce buries his face in the couch cushion. 

“Jesus, this place is fucking mess,” Tony says. “Come on, Bruce, get up.”

Bruce doesn't respond, because he knows Tony is only going to try to draw him into an argument, and it's going to happen either way, whether he gets up off this couch or not.

“For fuck's sake,” Tony mutters, and pulls the blanket off him. “Get up.”

Bruce doesn't do anything; he's hit the humiliation event horizon now, he may as well just ride it out. And sure enough, Tony grabs hold of the back of his t-shirt and hauls him up.

“Bruce, what the hell, are you trying out your mountain man Halloween costume early?”

He shrugs and squints against the light and Tony looks... at a loss, maybe. 

“Right,” Tony says, “well, go have a shower and take a pair of pruning shears to your face and I'll tidy up in here. You _really_ should have the cleaning staff come by every couple of days.”

“I don't want people in here,” Bruce mumbles.

Tony nods. “Yeah, that much is obvious. Go have a shower, okay?”

Bruce shrugs again and pulls himself up slowly

“There you go!” Tony says, way too cheerfully, and Bruce shuffles over to the bathroom.

He does manage to have a shower and sort of shave, though he misses a few spots under his chin – who's even going to care? – and finds some reasonably clean clothes to put on. When he comes back out, Tony is on his cell, carefully toeing through the comics spread out on the floor.

“Well, he's having a shower,” Tony says to whoever's on the phone. “Yeah... I know. I mean, what else am I supposed to do? I'm not a therapist. Fucking Rogers, you know, this is all his fau--” He looks up at Bruce standing in the doorway and grimaces. “I gotta go... Yeah. Yeah, I'll see you later. Love you, bye.”

He ends the call and stuffs his phone in his pocket, then eyes Bruce. “Okay, you look... presentable, let's go out.”

Bruce shrugs and follows him out. Tony leads him to the elevator and hesitates at the buttons. He glances at Bruce, and Bruce just stares back at him passively.

“You know what, we don't need to take one of the cars, let's walk somewhere, you probably need to stretch your legs.”

“Sure,” Bruce murmurs, and Tony hits the button for the first floor.

They take the elevator down in silence, and walk out in silence, and it's only when they're a block away that Tony takes a breath to speak.

“I think you should see a doctor.”

Bruce looks at him. “Because I locked myself in my apartment for a week and wouldn't come out?”

“Pretty much.”

Bruce nods slowly. “I'm not seeing a shrink.”

Tony pulls a face. “Look, they're not that bad. I've started seeing a therapist, since... everything, and Pepper practically had to drag me by my hair, but it's actually been kind of... okay.”

“I've seen a lot of psychiatrists, Tony,” he says, tracking passing cars for moment. “My uncle thought I might turn into a psycho like my father.”

“Oh,” Tony says. Tony Stark, at a loss for words? Bruce is almost proud of himself.

They walk on a little while longer. Practically everything he sees reminds him of Cap – toys in windows (and there's a toy of Hulk now; how horrific), headlines on news stands, 'Captain America-inspired' clothing lines. The world's finally caught up to his former obsession.

“It's not Steve's fault, you know,” he says, looking back at Tony.

Tony pulls a sour face. “He's a fucking insensitive idiot.”

“No, he's not. He has the right to his opinion. Clearly the serum did something else to me than it did him. I'm... different inside.”

“We're not living in a fairytale!” Tony announces loudly, and people on the street turn and look. “Cut this 'true nature' bullshit. This is _science_ , okay?”

“Just because you like Hulk doesn't mean he's not a monster. Doesn't mean I'm not a...” He sighs and runs his hands over his hair. It's grown out quite a bit now, but it's still not back to normal.

Tony looks angry, brow furrowing and mouth getting all pinched, and Bruce shrugs and looks away. “Bruce,” he says sharply, “I've _done_ bad things, okay? I get it. I get the guilt and shit. But it doesn't mean you're a monster.”

“Sure,” Bruce mumbles.

“ _Bruce_ ,” Tony repeats, reaching out to stop him walking. He really can't let this go, apparently.

Bruce digs the heels of his hands into his eyes and sighs. “Let's drop it, okay, unless you want me to start crying again on Fifth Avenue.”

Tony frowns. “Bruce...”

Bruce forces a thin smile. “I'd go home now but I forgot my keys, so where to?”

-

Bruce never understood why General Ross hired him for the project, considering that he'd come over when Bruce and Betty first moved in together, and got into a screaming argument with her for ten straight minutes. Bruce hid in the bathroom.

The first day at the lab, Ross glared at Bruce until Bruce looked at the floor, which he did pretty quickly. He might as well have rolled over and showed his stomach to the man.

The other scientists on the team didn't like him much either, because he straddled the line between nepotism and pariah, but at least he got to work with Betty most of the day. He hated being away from her.

“If this works out,” she said as they go through test results over Chinese takeout, “it's going to save so many lives.”

He wiped soy sauce from his chin and smiled. “I hope so.”

-

Steve's phone starts ringing near the end of his run, and he slows to a stop outside a bakery. He is definitely not going to go in there after and buy a box of donuts and eat them all in one go. Definitely not.

He gets his phone out of his pocket and looks at the display. Tony. Great.

“Hi, Tony.”

“You're an asshole.”

He blinks. “Nice to hear from you too.”

“No, you really fucking are. What the fuck is this 'the serum amplifies who you are inside' bullshit that you've got lodged in Bruce's head?”

“Uh...”

“He locked himself in his apartment for a _week_ , I only just managed to get him out, and he hightailed it back in there as soon as my back was turned. Don't you even _think_ before you speak?”

Steve snorts. Being lectured on tact by Tony is quite the experience. “I never said anything to Bruce.”

“No, you just ran your mouth off about your magical super soldier steroids when you knew he might hear and decided to intimate to me and Rhodey something sinister about Bruce.”

“Like you're doing right now? Running your mouth off?” Steve replies, voice getting louder despite himself. “I don't really appreciate being called up and cursed at.”

“And I don't _appreciate_ that I've got a guy living in my house who'd probably slit his wrists right now if it'd do any good.”

Steve stops walking abruptly. “Bruce is suicidal again?” he asks, dropping his voice.

“I dunno, but he's not full of fucking joys of spring, that's for sure. I mean, fuck's sake, he used to be such a big...” Tony trails off and sighs.

“Such a big what?”

Tony tuts. “It doesn't matter. Bruce is just... not in a good place right now.”

“Colonel Rhodes _asked_ me about the serum,” Steve insists. “I was only telling him what I know...”

“Uh huh,” Tony murmurs. “Well, just leave Bruce alone, okay? You've imparted enough of your wisdom already.”

“I...” He frowns and scratches at the back of his head.

“I've gotta go,” Tony says. “Just, if you see Bruce again, don't talk to him.”

“Oh... kay,” he murmurs, and Tony hangs up on him without another word.

Steve stuffs his phone back in his pocket and glances at the bakery. He doesn't feel very hungry any more.

-

Since locking himself in his apartment clearly isn't going to work any more, Bruce starts coming out again, even spends an evening in Tony and Pepper's penthouse, eating the very lavish meal they put on.

“Is... anyone else coming?” he asks, lacing his fingers together and fidgeting.

“Nope, just us,” Tony says, clapping him on the shoulder. “Why? Aren't I enough for you?”

“You're enough for anyone,” Pepper says as she passes.

Tony rolls his eyes. “Hey, we've got a comedian in our midst.”

That sets the tone for the evening, the push and pull of Tony and Pepper, the easy antagonism between them, leaving Bruce in the periphery. He figures everyone's in their periphery when it comes to the the two of them, it's not personal to him. He wonders if people thought the same about him and Betty, years ago.

It's a nice enough evening despite this, though he could do without Tony making cow eyes at him every ten minutes (he has really big eyes, Bruce has only just noticed). He won't outright ask anything, but Bruce can tell that he's angling for some truth to be revealed. Bruce wouldn't have pegged him for the caring, sharing type.

“I'm gonna go,” Bruce says, just after nine. He's only been there a couple of hours, but he's already exhausted, and struggles for a moment to get off the couch. Tony reaches over to help but Bruce waves him off, trying not to flinch.

“You sure? We could watch a movie or something...”

Bruce shakes his head. “I'm sorry, I'm just tired, I was... up late last night, working.” It's a blatant lie, and he knows that Tony knows that, but he can't be bothered to save face right now.

“Not everyone wants to hear you monologuing,” Pepper says to Tony, and comes over to pat Bruce on the shoulder. “I hope you had a nice evening, Bruce.”

He flashes her a smile. “I did, thank you. I'm just... tired.”

She rubs her thumb against his shirt for a moment and nods. “I understand.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs, and shuffles towards the elevator.

“Hey, I'll come by tomorrow, I want to show you some new research,” Tony calls.

Bruce sighs, and looks back at him. “Sure, yeah.”

-

The first time Bruce met Betty's friends, he was twenty six and studying for his PhD. Betty was in her third year of undergrad and they'd been dating for a couple of months, though they met when she was in her first year, at a bar near college that she was too young to be in at the time. He wanted to talk to her as soon as he saw her, but he told himself it was creepy for a twenty four year old to hit on an eighteen year old – for certain values of 'hit on'.

After four godawful beers, he managed to go over to her table and say, 'hi' and stand there like an idiot, and by some miracle she found it cute and not vaguely stalkerish. Two years later she asked him out, and the rest was history.

By junior year, Betty lived in an apartment in a crappy part of Boston with a room mate who was never home, and Bruce found himself over there a lot. He lived in a house with five other guys, but, as cliché as it was, being with her was the first time in a long time that he didn't feel lonely. He felt calm and comfortable with her, and they had sex in three different rooms within the first four weeks of dating.

Her friends were nice. Diane was a chemistry major, Lauren was in biology with Betty, and Lauren's boyfriend, Danny, was a philosophy major, which meant he went on a ten minute rant about the 'self' and Bruce's eyes started to cross, but that was okay. They sat in Betty's sparsely decorated living room and ate pizza, and Bruce didn't say much, but that was okay, too. He kind of felt like he should be able to deal with being around people six years his junior, but Betty already knew he was weird, and she kept touching his knee or his arm as the conversation went on, like she was keeping him involved even if he didn't speak.

When everyone was finished eating and the drinks were running dry, Bruce quickly volunteered to throw out the pizza boxes and grab some more beers. Betty murmured a protest, but not very strongly, and Bruce grinned, kissing her quickly on the lips.

“You've got him well-trained,” Danny said once Bruce went into the kitchen, not making much effort to keep his voice down.

“Don't be a dick,” Lauren replied.

“He just seems to be very... docile.”

Bruce felt himself flush with embarrassment. He tried his best not to be 'docile' after eight years away from the group home, but it's hard to change something that's been beaten into you.

“He is not _docile_ ,” Betty said sharply, and Bruce smiled despite himself. “He's a _nice person_.”

“Ignore him,” Lauren said, “he gets like this when he reads _Notes from the Underground_.”

“He seems really nice,” Diane added.

Betty sighed wistfully. “Yeah...” she said, and the tone of her voice made his toes curl.

-

It seems like these days the only way to find something out is to use a computer. Steve isn't so bad on the computer these days; he read up about video games on Wikipedia and uses Google to found restaurants near him, the greasier the better, but his skills pretty much top out there.

The obvious person to go to for help is Tony, but Steve probably isn't his favourite person at the moment, and he's starting to wonder if maybe Tony has a point about what he said. What _does_ he know about the serum, really, aside from the fact that it worked for him but no one else?

He sits on this for a couple of days, until he sees Natasha. She's taken a special interest in his integration into the twenty first century, whether through orders or her own initiative, and he made the decision not to ask. It's nice, having a friend.

“You're good at computers, right?” he asks over coffee, after a sparring session at the gym.

Natasha smiles slightly into her fancy coffee. “Yes, I'm good at them.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Can you help me find some stuff out about Project Rebirth?”

“What... kind of stuff?” she asks quietly, eyeing the people around them in Starbucks. He should have known that she'd know more about it than she's told him.

“Anything. Some stuff's been going on with Bruce – which I assume you already know about – and it's got me thinking.”

She nods slowly. “I could probably find some stuff for you.”

“Do you... already know something?” he pushes, leaning in.

She picks up her cup and swirls the remaining coffee around, looking at him carefully. “I know... that you weren't the last person they tried it on.”

He shrugs. “Yeah, Bruce.”

“No... Before him.”

“Who?”

She shakes her head. “I don't know.”

Steve narrows his eyes a little. “How long ago?”

“Sixty, seventy years ago,” she says, turning her gaze to the street beyond Starbuck's window.

He frowns. “What are you telling me?”

She looks back him. “That you're not the only one.”

-

When Bruce was fifteen, he read the _Metamorphosis_ , because an older kid on his floor had a copy of it and Bruce was bored one day. It gave him horrific nightmares about turning into... _something_ and being locked away forever, and he wet the bed enough times that they sent him back to the psychiatrist.

After a couple of months, he finally managed to put it mostly out of his head, stop wetting the bed, and stop seeing the psychiatrist, at least for a while. It all came roaring back twelve years later, though, when the film club Betty was a part of put on a special screening of _The Fly_ for Halloween that year. Betty loved scary movies and Bruce didn't want to seem childish so he went with her, despite the fact that he'd purposefully avoided seeing the film when it first came out.

He spent half of the movie looking away, and Betty lightly teased him about what a scaredy cat he was, up until Bruce bolted from the room and ended up throwing up in the men's restroom. Betty ran after him and stroked his back and took him home, and when he had the nightmare again, Betty was there to let him out of the room.

But Betty isn't here now, and he wakes up in a cold sweat, rolling out of bed and hitting the floor. The first thing he does when his sight clears is check he hasn't pissed on himself.

“Jesus,” he mutters, patting down the sheets. They're a little damp, but only from sweat. 

He pulls himself onto shaky feet and checks the clock. It's five thirty in the morning and still pretty much dark outside. His pulse has yet to settle, and he tries to take a steadying breath, without much luck. The bedroom door is closed, and he glances back at the rumpled bed for a second before striding across the room and throwing the door open. He steps out into the living room and takes another breath. Well, he's not trapped in his bedroom, at least.

Looking around the living room, though, he still feels pretty locked in. It's dark and the place is a mess, and he doesn't know why he suddenly had that dream again, but maybe it's sign for him to get out of here.

He finds a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans that seem wearable, and jams on some shoes, though he can't find any socks. He does manage to grab his keys before he leaves, and slams the door shut behind him.

His chest expands a little in the brightly lit hallway. Since it's not even six in the morning yet, he guesses that not much is open, and he's not sure he wants to leave the building, he just needed to get of _there_. What do normal people do when they're anxious? His recent attempts at meditation have all ended with him staring blankly at a wall for an hour, and drinking probably isn't a great option either.

“Exercise,” he mutters, and looks up at the ceiling. “JARVIS, where's the gym?”

“Floor sixty, room 604, sir,” he replies.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, and makes his way to the elevator.

He's pretty much talked himself out of it by the time he gets down to the right floor, but he figures he might as well go in and look around, if only to kill some time.

As soon as he pushes the door open he hears grunts and thumps and when he peers in, he finds Pepper smacking the hell out of a bag. She's not just into it, or in the zone or whatever, she looks _angry_ , her teeth bared , not giving herself a moment to catch her breath. Bruce attempts to back quietly out of the room, but as soon as he takes another step, her head snaps to him, hands still raised defensively.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “I'll go.”

She stares at him for a moment, chest heaving, sweat rolling down her neck, before shaking herself. “No, you can come in. If you want to, I mean.”

He nods and takes a few steps closer. “I didn't think anyone would be in here, sorry.”

“I was just getting a workout in before... work,” she says, and smiles awkwardly. He's never seen that expression on her face before. “I didn't know you used the gym.”

He smiles. “You didn't look at this body of an Adonis and know I hit the gym hard?”

She laughs a little, only now dropping her fists.

“I...” He scratches at the back of his head. “I had a nightmare, I'm just trying to distract myself.”

“Ah,” she says. “You didn't want to go invent a bunch of new things like Tony does when he can't sleep?”

He shrugs. “I'm having trouble concentrating on stuff at the moment.”

“Okay, well, feel free to use whatever you want,” she says, nodding to all the different equipment. He can identify a running machine and that's about it.

He nods and she looks back at the bag, raising her fists again, the pleasant expression on her face sliding away.

“Pepper,” he says quickly, and sort of regrets speaking when she looks up at him. “Um... Are you okay?”

She purses her lips. “I'm fine,” she says shortly.

“Okay...” He looks back at the door. He should just go, there's no chance he's actually going to exercise, he's miserable enough already. He takes a couple of steps towards the door, and the thumping of Pepper's fists stop.

“Bruce?”

He turns back to her. “Yeah?”

She sucks on her bottom lip for a second. “I'm not okay. Can we... talk?”

This is another look he hasn't seen on her before: nervousness. “Of course,” he says, walking back over to her. He doesn't know what else to say, so he stays quiet and waits for her to speak. She starts hitting the punching bag again, and after some hesitation, he comes over and holds it from the other side.

It takes a couple of minutes, but she finally takes a breath to speak. “You know about Extremis, right?”

He nods. Punch.

“And... that Killian injected me with the virus?”

He nods again. Punch.

“And that Tony cured me of it?”

Bruce smiles a little. “Yeah, he hasn't missed an opportunity to mention that yet.”

She smiles back briefly, then looks away. “Well... I can still... I think he didn't get all of it.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Oh. Does Tony know?”

“Yeah. He said that it was all in my head.” Bruce winces and Pepper shakes her head. “Wait, that makes him sound awful. He was actually surprisingly tactful about it, but it's obvious he thinks it's psychological. He tested my blood three times after the 'cure' and they all came back clean. He's offered to go with me to my therapy sessions instead.”

“He's pretty into that these days,” Bruce murmurs.

“He never does anything by halves,” she says. Punch punch.

“Yeah... So... why do you think you've still got the virus?”

She shrugs and lands a particularly strong punch. Bruce sways back a little. “I don't know. I just... When Killian injected me with it, it felt like... like something was _inside_ of me that was trying to, to...”

“Escape?” he suggests. “Like it'd tear you apart if it got the chance?”

She looks at him with an unreadable expression for a second, then nods. “Yeah, and sometimes I can still feel it now. Tony thinks I'm just fixating on the memory, and maybe I am. I hope I am, but... I just feel different. I'm _stronger_ than I used to be, I can run faster, I don't need to sleep so much. I just feel... strange.”

Bruce nods. “Yeah, yeah, I know what that's like.”

“Is this...” She pauses for a moment and looks at him. “You don't have to answer this, but is this how you feel all the time?”

He shrugs a shoulder. “Most of the time, yeah. I feel like I'm always being watched by something.” He runs his fingers through his hair. “Maybe 'watched' isn't the best way of describing it, though.”

“I know what you mean,” she says. “Like there's something that's always just slightly hidden from sight.”

“Exactly,” he murmurs. 

They don't talk for a few minutes, leaving the gym silent but for Pepper's fists on the punching bag. He's not sure if she really is stronger than before – she's strong, but not to an abnormal degree for a woman who obviously works out. But he doesn't know what she was like before, so maybe she's right. He's hardly the person to judge other people's states of mind.

“Hey,” he says after a while. 

She slows her boxing and looks at him. “Yeah?”

“Do you want me to test your blood?”

She frowns. “Why? Tony's already done it so many times, I've stopped asking.”

He shrugs. “I probably know more about biology than him,” he says. “I mean, you don't have to, I just thought I'd offer.”

“No, yeah, I'm not...” She purses her lips for a moment, then quirks an eyebrow. “Are you saying you're smarter than Tony, then?”

“Not in any way that matters, but... I had to learn a lot about weird biology, so...”

“Yeah...” She smiles. “Okay. I have to get to work soon – or go downstairs to my office, I should say. I'm still not sure about this living and working in the same building thing.”

“Seems kind of suffocating,” he comments.

She steps back and starts unwrapping her hands. “Exactly.”

He takes a couple vials of blood from her and she goes to get dressed, leaving him to analyse it. It's picky, tedious work for the most part, and he's particularly glad to have glasses now, because without them all this squinting would be impossible, even with the microscope.

It's easier to work when there's an actual reason for it, though, not just pointless busywork. He finds he can concentrate better with the goal of helping Pepper in mind, and he spends all afternoon at it, blowing through lunch and coming back up for air at five in the afternoon.

“Shit,” he mutters, and gets up, grabbing the coke can he's been drinking out of and heading for the elevator.

He rides it down to the twentieth floor, to Pepper's office, and goes in. The PA looks at him suspiciously.

“Yes?”

“Is Pep-- Ms. Potts in?”

Her eyes narrow slightly. “Are you from IT?”

He looks down at himself. He guesses he does kind of look like a stereotypical IT guy. He still doesn't have any socks on. “No, I'm a friend of Ms. Potts. Is she free?” 

“She doesn't take visitors without appointments,” the PA says.

He sighs and rubs at his face. “Can you just go tell her that Bruce is here to see her?”

Her eyes narrow, but she gets up from her desk and goes to Pepper's office door. She knocks once and steps in smoothly, closing the door behind her. There are other people milling around the office who are _very_ well-dressed and giving him funny looks as they pass. He sighs again and crosses his arms over his chest.

The PA comes back out and looks at him irritably. “You can go in now,” she says.

“Thank you,” he says, and smiles thinly as he passes.

Pepper looks a lot more buttoned up now than she did hours earlier, but there's still a hint of nervousness in her expression. “So?” she asks.

He stuffs his hands in his pockets. “You, uh.” God, he feels like a doctor telling someone they have cancer or something. “You do still have trace amounts of the virus in your blood.”

She blinks and stands up. “I... so it's not in my head?”

“No, it's not.”

She takes a breath and nods. “I guess it's better know. Am I going to... blow up like the others?”

“No, don't worry, it's only given you slight enhancements, like the stuff you mentioned earlier.”

“Okay, well...” She worries at the cuff of her jacket and he sighs.

“There's something else,” he says.

She snorts. “God, I'm not pregnant, am I?” When he doesn't respond right away, her eyes widen. “I'm _not_ , am I?”

He shakes his head quickly. “No, it's nothing like that. It's nothing about you, really. It was just, when I was looking at your blood, there were some... markers that seemed familiar to me, and eventually I figured out where I recognised them from. It was from my own blood, so I drew some and compared, and... there are a lot of similarities.” 

“Am I going to...?”

“Don't worry, you're not gonna become CEO Hulk, you're more like... Cap. Steve.”

“I'm a super soldier now?”

“Not quite, but it seems like Dr Hansen grew her research out of some of Erskine's surviving work, and you have some of the enhancements that go along with that. What Tony did to neutralise the effects actually stabilised it, which is probably the first time it's been stable since Steve.”

“Wow,” she murmurs, and sits back down. “Wow. Honestly, I wasn't expecting you to find anything wrong.”

He takes a couple of steps closer to her desk and rests his hands on the back of a chair there. “I'm sorry.”

“No, I've been fussing and worrying about this for months, I should be happy to get some kind of answer.”

“It's not the answer you wanted, though.”

She shrugs. “When is it?” She rubs a hand across her face and sighs. “You know, I should have asked you earlier, are _you_ okay?”

“Sure, I'm fine.” Her eyebrows rise and he smiles. “I mean, I think I'm having a nervous breakdown, but other than that...”

Pepper smiles back a little, then sighs again. He guesses she realises that he isn't joking. “I have some time,” she says, gesturing to the chair he's leaning against. “You want to stay for a little while?”

-

Steve rides his motorbike over to the Bronx a few days after Natasha gives him a thin file of information. She said she couldn't do any more, since she wasn't even allowed to do what she did. He guesses this is probably something he has to do on his own, anyway.

The place he's looking for is a pretty nice, if modest, house in Riverdale. It makes Steve feel a little better, somehow, as he parks his bike outside and locks it. He checks the scrap of paper he scribbled the name and address on one last time, then walks up the front door and knocks. There's silence for a minute, then someone calling out, 'I'll get it, grandma!'.

Steve hooks his thumb through his belt loops and stands at semi parade rest as the door's opened.

“Hey, I...” the boy starts, then trails off, looking up at Steve. He's about sixteen, Steve figures.

“Does Isaiah Bradley live here?” Steve asks, and the kid blinks at him. Steve gives him another couple of seconds to process everything, and sure enough the kid shakes himself back to the present.

“Yes...” he says, brow furrowing.

“Is he home? Can I speak to him?”

The boy blinks, then turns and calls back into the house, “Grandma!”

“I'm doing the laundry!” comes the answer.

“You're going to want to meet this guy!” the kid yells back, then looks back at Steve. “She'll come.”

“Okay,” Steve says.

“So... you're Captain America.”

Steve nods. “I am, yeah.”

The boy nods and shifts from foot to foot. Steve hears steps coming from inside the house, getting closer to them, until he can hear muttering.

“I swear, this better be important, Eli...” the woman, presumably Eli's grandmother, mutters to herself as she rounds the corner and comes into view. Then she stops in her tracks. Steve tends to have that effect on people.

“Good afternoon, Mrs... Bradley?”

She blinks, just like her grandson. “Yes. Sir?”

“Steve,” he says. “I was wondering if I could speak to your husband? If he's home.”

“He... is having a nap,” she says slowly.

He nods. “Oh... okay.”

“I think we could wake him up for Captain America,” Eli says, “I mean, he's always taking about--”

“Yes, fine, I'll get him,” she says.

Eli pushes his shoulders back a little. “I can go I get him if you want.”

“No, I'll need to... explain some things to him,” she says, and Steve frowns for a second. “Show our visitor in, sweetheart.”

Eli ducks his head a little and clears his throat. Steve tries not to smile – even he knows how important it is to seem grown up at that age. “Yes, Grandma,” Eli mutters, and opens the door wider. “Living room's over here,” he says, pointing across the hall.

“Okay, thank you,” Steve says, stepping in, and glances at a big pile of shoes by the door. “Should I take my shoes off?”

“Uh, yeah, thanks,” Eli says, closing the door behind him.

“No problem,” Steve replies, and toes his sneakers off. He follows Eli into a small living room with a squashy couch and equally squashy armchairs, and Eli stands awkwardly to the side and gestures to one of them. Steve takes a seat.

“Do you, um, want something drink?” Eli asks.

Steve shakes his head. “I'm fine, thanks for asking.”

“Okay...” Eli murmurs, and sits down in the armchair near Steve. “So, um... It's really true, huh?”

“What is?”

Eli shifts in his chair. “That my grandfather's a super soldier.”

“That's what I'm trying to find out,” he says. 

Eli nods. “He's told me all these stories over the years, you know, but I never really believed them. Not since I was a kid, anyway.”

Steve smiles. “People never believe stuff their grandparents tell them, that hasn't changed.”

There's creaking on the floorboards outside the living room, and Steve turns his head towards the noise.

“What is it?” Eli asks.

“Your grandmother's coming back, I think.”

Eli raises his eyebrows. “You can hear that?”

“Yeah... You can't?” He thought she was just coming down the hallway, but when she fails to appear, he realises that she's further away than he thought.

“I can't hear a thing, man. Granddad always knows when people were coming, though. Impossible to sneak up on.”

“Right,” Steve says, and then Mrs Bradley really is coming down the hallway, with a man in tow. Steve frowns and stands up. “Is that your grandfather?” he asks Eli.

Eli nods, and Steve frowns. Mrs Bradley must be in her eighties, at least, but this man with her, he looks about fifty, at the outside. He looks like he'd fit in better with Tony and Rhodey than the guys down at the senior centre Steve volunteers at sometimes.

“Hello, Mr Bradley,” Steve says as they come into the room, and Isaiah's eyes go round when he sees him.

“Captain America!” he says, and hurries up to Steve to grasp his hand.

Steve smiles and shakes his hand. “Steve.”

“Isaiah,” Isaiah say, smiling back. Mrs Bradley tells him to sit down, and the four of them rearrange themselves. Isaiah sits on the couch next to Steve, Mrs Bradley takes an armchair, and Eli leans against its armrest.

“So... you know who I am?” Steve asks Isaiah.

“Oh yeah, we used to read your comics in downtime, they were funny.”

“'We'?” Steve says.

Isaiah's expression shutters off immediately, and he looks away. Mrs Bradley touches his arm gently, murmuring comfort.

“I'm sorry,” Steve says, “I didn't mean to...”

She shakes her head. “It's fine, it's just a difficult subject.”

“Okay, um...” Maybe he should start with a less fraught question. “Um, I hope you don't mind me asking, but how old are you, Isaiah?”

Isaiah looks back at him, frowning a little. “I'm...” he starts, looking lost.

“Eighty six,” Mrs Bradley supplies.

“Okay...” He's not sure where to go next, it seems like every question he asks is a problem.

Mrs Bradley sighs heavily, and moves her hand to Isaiah's back. “Isaiah suffered brain damage while he was in prison.”

“Prison?” Steve repeats.

“He spent seventeen years in solitary confinement for 'impersonating Captain America'.”

Steve grimaces. “ _Seventeen_ years?”

Mrs Bradley's mouth gets all small and pursed. “Yes, and because he didn't get proper medical treatment, the damage from the serum was allowed to progress for almost two decades.”

The damage of the _serum_? He wants to ask, but that's probably only going to cause more upset. Not that there are really any questions that won't at this point.

“I'm okay,” Isaiah says, “it was a long time ago.”

“Yeah...” It was all so long ago for everyone else. “Would you be okay if I asked you some questions? About the... serum?” Isaiah looks a little uncertain and Steve takes a breath. “I mean, only if you're okay with that.”

Isaiah frowns for a moment, then shrugs. “Okay.”

“Okay. When did you... when did you get the serum?”

“Oh, it was...” He rubs at his chin for a moment, looking thoughtful. “1944. I was eighteen. I joined the 370th, I thought I was gonna get shipped out to Italy with everyone else, but then a bunch of us got pulled.”

“How many?”

“Oh, more than I could count, I've never been good at math.”

Steve smiles and nods for him to continue.

“They told us they could make us big and strong, and I didn't really wanna agree 'cause it sounded scary, but they said we'd get paid more and my Faith was pregnant with our baby girl.” He looks at his wife and smiles. Mrs Bradley pats his hand. He looks back at Steve. “So, I said 'okay', and they... did stuff to us. Most of 'em died.”

“They were all black, by the way,” Eli adds.

“Yeah, 370th was a... segregated unit,” Steve says, running his fingers through his hair. “Um. How many men survived?”

“Ten,” Isaiah says. He's definite on that fact. “We were sent on black ops missions, but everyone got killed, except me.”

“And then what happened?” Steve asks.

“I was sent on one last mission, in '45, and I figured if I dressed up as... you, I'd scare the bejesus out of them, since it'd been reported that you died. But the people in charge didn't like my idea so much and they arrested me.”

Steve nods. “Do you, uh, do you remember any of names of the doctors? The people in charge?” It's not like he can do anything with the names, they'd all be dead by now anyway, but he just doesn't think he could deal with it if Phillips was involved in this.

“I don't have such a good memory any more. There were a lot of different guys. I don't remember. I don't know. I...” He's visibly upset by this, so Steve quickly waves his hand.

“I'm sorry, I've asked enough questions,” he says.

Mrs Bradley takes a breath and sits back. “I should get you something, Captain... Captain. Eli, why didn't you get him something?”

“I offered! He said no!” Eli insists indignantly.

“It's true, I did say no.”

“Well.” Mrs Bradley stands up and brushes non-existent lint from her skirt. “I'll get you something now. Tea?”

Steve smiles. “Sure, that'd be nice.”

She nods once and brushes her fingertips against Isaiah's shoulder as she leaves. He looks back at her for a moment, then turns back to Steve. He looks pensive.

“I don't know why it only worked for some of us,” he says, eyebrows drawing together.

Steve sighs and shakes his head. “Yeah, me either.”

-

“So, I hear you told my girlfriend that she's super. You know, _I_ could have told her that much,” Tony says from the door of the entertainment room. Bruce hasn't been sleeping much since the nightmares started up again; four times in the past week, but no wetting himself – yet. He's gone from sleeping away most of the day, to not sleeping at all, and not even being able to stand staying in his apartment for extended lengths of time.

He's been avoiding Tony as best as he can for the week, going out at the times that Tony tends to roam the tower, steering clear of the labs, but the temperature's starting to drop and he couldn't get up the energy to go out today. He's been lying on the couch all afternoon watching old episodes of _Star Trek_ and eating chips.

“Huh?” he murmurs, hitting pause on Uhura slapping Sulu. This is his favourite episode, too.

“Girlfriend, super powers, mine,” Tony summarises, coming into the room.

“Oh yeah,” he says, struggling to sit up. Tony watches him with pity for a moment, then comes over and grabs his hand, pulling him up. “Thanks,” Bruce mutters.

“I'm the one who should be thanking you,” Tony says. “You figured out what I couldn't. You helped out Pepper when I maybe wasn't listening to her like I should.”

Bruce shrugs and gestures to freed up couch cushion; Tony steps over and sits down. “She didn't say anything bad about you. She said you were trying to help.”

Tony sighs and leans his head back against the couch. “Not the way she needed it.”

Bruce shrugs again. God, he doesn't want to have to play counsellor, Tony pays people to listen to that kind of stuff. And anyway, his advice would probably be life-ruiningly awful.

“Hey, so, apparently I stabilised the super soldier serum?” Tony says, turning his head to Bruce.

“Uh, yeah. Sort of. When you were trying to get rid of it, you inadvertently made it work.”

“That's me, always stumbling into greatness.”

Bruce snorts. “Yeah. But don't, um, don't try to recreate it, okay? There are enough of us fuck ups in the world already.”

“What, you think I'd try to recreate a super dangerous, super unstable, super-growth hormone?” he says, and Bruce raises his eyebrows. “Okay, maybe I would, but I'm busy right now. And hey, don't call Pepper a fuck up!”

“I didn't mean Pepper,” he says.

“Okay, so who are the fuck ups, plural? You and... oh wait, there was that other guy...”

“Blonsky,” Bruce supplies.

“Right, yeah, that guy. British, right?”

“Yep,” Bruce says shortly.

“Well, you're right that we definitely don't need any more people like him in the world. More Bruce Banners, though? Pretty sure we'd clear that 'cancer' thing up in no time.”

“I'm not that kind of...” He trails off and sighs. “I've been sitting on this couch, eating chips all day, watching _Star Trek_. I'm not curing anyone of anything.”

“Everyone needs downtime,” Tony says, waving his hand dismissively. “Anyway, you're out of your apartment, wearing daytime clothes. That's a win.”

“Sure...” he murmurs, arching an eyebrow at Tony. He'll probably hire a marching band if Bruce manages to shave tomorrow morning.

Tony grins and nods at the TV. “This is one of my favourites,” he says.

“Mine too,” Bruce says, and switches it back on.

They sit and watch the show for a couple of minutes in silence, until Bruce offers Tony the packet of chips he's been grazing from.

“Thanks,” Tony says, and lapses back into silence for a moment, before opening his mouth again. “Oh, hey, I should probably let you know, I'm going to be away for, like, four/five days starting tomorrow.”

Bruce nods. “Anywhere nice?”

Tony snorts. “The burn centre at NewYork-Presbyterian. Apparently it's pretty nice.” Bruce frowns at him and he smiles. “Skin graft. They're supposed to be one of the top in the country.”

“Oh...” Bruce glances down at Tony's chest, where there's no longer a blue glow lighting his way. “I thought it was all done...”

“This should be the last time,” he says with a shrug.

“Okay.” Bruce looks back at the screen, then at Tony. “So... are you okay?”

Tony tips his head to one side and shrugs a shoulder. “Being anaesthetised terrifies me, so they usually have to sedate me first, but I pay them a lot of money, so the nurses are nice to me. Pepper pets my hair and brings me food afterwards. It could be worse.”

Bruce nods. “Okay, well, if I can do anything...”

Tony smiles. “You can stop talking over Kirk.”

-

The Bio-Force Enhancement Project was by far the hardest, most satisfying work that Bruce had ever been involved in. Him and Betty spent night after night sitting on their living room floor, eating cold pizza and figuring out what types of radiation the serum Betty was developing would protect against. If this project was successful, it could protect against the next Chernobyl, prevent cancer... It'd be the breakthrough of the century.

The different subdivisions working on the project didn't converse that much, except through reports. It seemed kind of strange, but they had a coordinator who kept everything running smoothly enough. Bruce wasn't totally sure why he was put in the same division as Betty, since he was the radiation/physics guy, and Betty and the rest of their group members were biochem. He definitely wasn't complaining, though, and it worked out, especially since he knew a little about cellular biology himself. He must have exposed serum-infused tissue to different forms of radiation hundreds of times a month.

The serum was amazing, every tissue sample came back tougher than before; one even started to _grow_ again.

“Ew,” Betty muttered, scrutinising sample 468 from behind toughened glass. “Okay, so I guess I need to adjust the serum again.”

“Maybe we could grow ourselves that cat,” Bruce said, and Betty rolled her eyes.

“That's disgusting, Bruce. You're such a _boy_ sometimes.”

He pulled a silly face at her and crowded her away from the window. “Oh yeah?” he murmured, sliding his hands around her waist.

“Yeah,” she said, curling her fingers around the collar of his t-shirt.

When he came back to the lab later, the sample was already gone, but General Ross was there.

Bruce tidied his t-shirt and wiped at his mouth – thankfully, Betty was only wearing tinted lip balm that day. Ross looked at him up and down, and Bruce had to ball his hands to fists to stop himself from backing up.

“The team is doing good work,” Ross said, gazing boring into Bruce.

“Yeah, we're, uh... we're making some headway.”

Ross nodded. “Mm. Maybe hiring you wasn't a mistake.” He stared at Bruce for another second, then strode across the lab towards him. Bruce edged out of his way as he approached the door, and Ross looked down at him from his six foot two frame, curling his lip.

“Christ, my daughter has bigger balls than you, Banner,” he said, and passed out of the doorway. Bruce only belatedly realised that Ross was carrying one of the team's manilla folders under his arm.

-

Tony goes to the hospital the next day like he said, and Bruce finally gets what he wants, to be ignored and left alone.

He feels more restless than ever, though, thinking about Tony being in hospital, being prepped for surgery, being so scared that he has to be sedated. Maybe Bruce should have gone with Tony and Pepper this morning, but it felt like an intrusion to even ask. By mid morning, he can no longer stand sitting in his apartment, and instead opts to goes back down to the labs to poke at the various different things he's been working on the last couple of months. 

It's all crap, basically, but his gaze keeps getting drawn back to Pepper's blood test results, sitting in a manilla folder by his computer. He sighs, rolls his chair over to it, and picks it up.

_There are enough of us fuck ups in the world already._

He looks at Pepper's results again, then glances up at the computer. “JARVIS, how much access to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s databases do you have?”

“How much would you like, sir?”

Bruce snorts. “Gimme everything you can find about Emil Blonsky.”

“Yes, sir,” JARVIS replies, and the computer powers on and starts opening up windows. Bruce grimaces at the ceiling for a moment, then wheels himself closer to take a look.

He scrolls through the different; Blonsky's service record with the British Royal Navy, his birth certificate, his _death_ certificate, and a detailed report on his 'condition'. _Captain Blonsky_ , it reads, _has an unprecedented superhuman condition, over and above that of Dr. Robert Bruce Banner. As of the writing of this report, he has been unable to return to his original form._

Jesus, Bruce has never felt _lucky_ before. He skims the rest of the report, discovering at the end that Blonsky's been incarcerated somewhere called the 'Vault'. That sure sounds like a happy, not super creepy government institution place to be.

“JARVIS, where is the Vault?”

“Colorado, sir.”

Bruce nods absently and reads over the report again. He kind of actually feels _sorry_ for this fucking psycho. From the sounds of it, Blonsky was an okay person before he had the misfortune of being preyed on by Ross, and Bruce certainly knows what it's like to get all twisted up by Ross. 

And Blonsky might be the only person who'll ever actually be able to understand Bruce, despite their obvious issues with each other. It's not like tall, blond, perfect Steve, or tall, redhead, perfect Pepper are ever going to understand what it's like to have something else living inside of you – not like Bruce, anyway.

God, he really must be crazy. “JARVIS?” he asks tentatively.

“Yes, sir?”

“How would I... get into the Vault?”

“As a visitor or a prisoner, sir?”

“Let's start with visitor...” Hell, it'll get him out of the tower, at least.

The great thing about living in Stark Tower is that when you need to go to a place, say, two thousand miles away, a nice robot butler says, 'sir, the plane will be ready in half an hour'. It's not a bad life.

Four hours later, he's in Colorado, with a fake ID and an appointment to see someone in the prison. He doesn't think it's actually going to work, because it seems so simple, and 'simple' is never good, but they let him through, and no one seems suspicious, so he sets off to find Blonsky's cell.

JARVIS gave him the cell number, so it's not too hard to track down, and he was given a biometric ID card when he came in, so the guards let him pass without comment. This might actually work. Now he just has to figure out what the hell he's going to say to Blonsky. Can the guy-- or the whatever he is now-- even speak? It's not like Hulk's much a conversationalist.

“Dr Banner,” a voice calls, pulling him from his thoughts.

He spins on his heel to come face to face with... Fury.

“Oh,” he says. “Director...”

“Fancy meeting you here,” Fury says, the corners of his mouth tipped up a little.

“Yeah, how did you...?”

Fury takes a few steps towards Bruce. “You really think S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't monitor HAL 9000? Come on, we aren't stupid.”

Bruce narrows his eyes, and Fury chuckles.

“Can't get enough Clarke. Are you really going to go talk to this... guy?”

Bruce shrugs. “Are you gonna stop me?”

“I should. I should. But you're a grown man, you can make your own decisions.”

“Thanks...”

“Although,” Fury adds as Bruce looks back towards the cell door, “I wonder if it's the best idea, considering your current mental state.”

“My...? Oh, you know about that.” He doesn't even phrase it like a question. Of course S.H.I.E.L.D. knows! They probably know that he doesn't have enough fibre in his diet, too. “Well, like you said, I'm a big boy, I'll figure it out.”

Fury just nods, eyeballing him, and Bruce takes a breath and reaches out for the handle of cell door.

“Oh, one thing,” Fury says. “Stay behind the glass.”

Bruce looks back at him. “What?”

“Trust me.”

Bruce smiles wanly. “Funny,” he mutters, and lets himself into the room.

It's pitch black in there, and Bruce has to feel along the wall for a light switch, which only fills the room with a faint glow. He sees what Fury meant about the glass, it cuts the room in two, Bruce on one side of it and, presumably, Blonsky on the other. Not that Bruce can see him, he can't make out anything from that side of the room.

He tries to swallow down rising fear – nothing good ever happens when he's scared – and steps further into the room. Something shifts beyond the glass.

“I can hear your heart beating,” a gravelly voice says.

A shudder passes through Bruce, but he stands as firm as he can, as he hears, _feels_ , movement towards the other side of the glass. 

What comes into sight is... He thought he remembered what Blonsky had looked like at the end, but this is... hideous. Hulk has a thick layer of fat and muscle, like all humanoids, but Blonsky looks... _emaciated_. And that's how he looked before, but it didn't strike Bruce as horrific as it does now. Jesus, how can he even survive like that?

“ _Banner_ ,” Blonsky growls.

Bruce is rooted to the floor with fear for a moment, heart rate jumping even higher, and Blonsky's grotesque mouth widens to what Bruce realises after a moment is a smile.

“Are you _scared_ , Banner?” Blonsky asks.

 _Am I_ scaring _you, boy?_ his father's voice echoes in his head. He swallows heavily.

“You can't change back,” he says, his voice so quiet and timid that he wants to scream at himself. 

“Yes,” Blonsky hisses.

Bruce swallows again. “Maybe I could... help you. Figure out how to get you to shift back. You could get out of here, at least.”

Blonsky's spiny lip curls. “Why would I want to change back?” He takes a couple of heaving, floor-shaking steps forward and looms closer to the glass. “If I get out of this prison, I'll crush your skull between my palms.”

Bruce can't help but take a stumbling step backwards even as his skin starts to tingle and Hulk growls back. “How can you... how can you want this? How can you want to be like this?”

Blonsky brings his face right up against the glass. “Do you think they'll be able to hold me in here forever, Banner?”

Hulk growls louder, forcing Bruce to stay where he is. “They'll kill you before they'll let you go free,” he says quietly.

“They'll try,” Blonsky says, baring his misshapen teeth at Bruce.

Bruce takes a breath and clenches his fists. Hulk desperately wants to take over, but Bruce knows that that will only lead to an unlimited stay in the room next door, a fate he'd at least like to delay for a while.

“Why did you do this to yourself?,” he asks. He can't seem to raise his voice above a whisper.

Blonsky laughs, like rocks scraping against each other. “I wanted to be better. I am better.”

Bruce shudders. “I shouldn't have come here,” he murmurs, and stumbles towards the door.

“ _Run_ ,” Blonsky growls as Bruce fumbles for the door handle and rushes out. He slams the door behind him and reaches out to the wall to steady himself, legs suddenly like jello. Christ, of all the bad ideas he's had recently... He leans his back against the wall and bends forward, resting his palms on his knees.

“Dr Banner,” Fury says.

“Mm, just a minute,” Bruce mumbles, biting down on his lip to quell the bile rising in his throat.

“He's a difficult man to talk to,” Fury drawls.

Bruce snorts wetly. “That's an understatement...”

“Come on, Doctor,” Fury says, and takes him by the arm. Bruce flinches away from him, but Fury just grips tighter and starts to lead him back down the hall. Bruce hates to be touched, most of the time, and even more so manhandled like this, but Fury commands a kind of authority that something in Bruce responds to.

“You're going to put me in here one day, aren't you?” he asks as Fury swipes them out.

Fury sighs and lets go of his arm. “Only if I have to. Hulk isn't like Blonsky, I know that, S.H.I.E.L.D. knows that.”

Bruce almost laughs; Fury doesn't know _shit_. He takes a deep breath. “Does that really matter? In the end?”

Fury raises his eyebrows. “If you want it to,” he says, in that infuriatingly vague way government people have about them. Bruce's social worker all those years ago was the same way.

“Great answer, thanks,” Bruce mutters.

Fury smiles, though it doesn't calm Bruce down at all. “You'd be better off talking to Captain Rogers than Captain Blonsky.”

Bruce wraps his arms around himself and nods. “I'll take that under advisement. Am I free to go?”

Fury tips his head to one side. “Of course, Dr Banner. Wouldn't want Stark Airlines to take off without you.”

Bruce nods and tugs his visitor ID off, stuffing it in his pocket. He doesn't trust that this isn't a limited time offer, so he speeds up towards the exit.

“Have a nice day, Dr Banner,” Fury calls, and Bruce makes a vague waving gesture over his shoulder before rounding the corner out of Fury's sight. He stops for a second and takes a shuddering breath, then practically runs out of the facility.

-

Tony's surgery doesn't go as planned. The plane has barely landed in New York when a call comes through from JARVIS. Tony went into anaphylactic shock on the table, and they're currently trying to stabilise him. Bruce is bone tired after Blonsky and two flights, but he still takes the flight stairs two at a time and runs into the waiting car.

The driver gets them over there in about fifteen minutes, probably breaking all kinds of speed limits, and Bruce blows past a dozen nurses, following JARVIS's directions. He only skids to a halt when he catches Happy wringing his hands.

“Dr Banner!” he says, waving him over.

Bruce sucks in a breath – he really should start using the gym. “Where's Pepper?” he pants. “Is Tony--?”

“No, he's still...” Happy looks unsure and doesn't finish his thought. “Pepper's in the family room. She, uh, she threw a lamp at me and told me to get out.”

Happy looks a little embarrassed and a lot concerned, and so is Bruce, not just about Tony, but Pepper too. He might not know her very well, but throwing objects at people doesn't really seem her style.

“Where's the family room?” he asks, still panting slightly.

Happy points across the hallway. “Last door on the left. But Dr Banner, she's really not...”

“It'll be fine,” Bruce says, despite feeling no such assurance. “Come tell us if there's any change with Tony.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Happy says, and crosses his arms over his chest, casting a glance back at the nurses' station.

Bruce nods and walks over to the family room. The door is already slightly open and when he nudges it wider, he sees the evidence of Pepper's lamp throwing scattered across the cheap swirly patterned carpet.

“Pepper?” he says softly, looking at where she's sitting, hunched over in an armchair, her head in her hands, loose hair obscuring her face. There's something... weird about her, but he can't quite tell what it is. “It's me. Bruce.”

“Bruce,” she murmurs quietly, and he takes that as enough permission to carefully walk over to her. “Bruce, something's wrong.”

“Tony's going to be fine,” he promises. “They're good doctors here, and—”

“No,” she cuts him off quietly. “With _me_.” She lifts her head a little and pushes back her hair to reveal her face. It almost seems like she's... glowing, and she's certainly sweating enough. She's stripped down to her camisole, he now notices, since he assumes that's not what she'd normally wears to the office. There's sweat dripping down her neck and her skin is red in places.

“This is what it was like before,” she says, and Bruce doesn't bother to ask 'before what?'.

“Okay,” he murmurs, and kneels down in front of her. He raises his hands slowly, in case she decides that, actually, she'd prefer not be touched, but she nods and he lays a hand on her neck.

It burns. Not like burning up with fever, but an _actual_ burn. Bruce bites the inside of his mouth and doesn't pull away, instead resting his other hand on the other side of her neck, and feeling out the glands. They're swollen up like hell.

“You said,” she begins, a flash of anger in her eyes, but she doesn't finish.

“I know.”

“Trace amounts,” she says accusingly.

He swallows. “I know, I'm sorry, but you have to calm down.”

“How?” she asks, sounding both angry and lost at the same time.

“Close your eyes,” he says, and after a second's suspicious stare, she does. “Think about... nothing. Do what you do in yoga.” He figures she does yoga, considering how long she lived on the West Coast, and she doesn't argue with him. “Breathe.”

“Does this really work?” she murmurs, muscles so tense under Bruce's palms that he's probably in very real danger of getting his neck snapped right now.

“Yes,” he says with as much confidence as he can. Does it work? Sometimes, but meditation certainly didn't solve all of his problems. He presses his forehead against hers – God, even that burns – takes a deep breath. “Breathe,” he repeats.

He's telling himself as much as her, really, and after a couple minutes of breathing slowly together, her skin starts to cool again. 

He breathes a sigh of relief and opens his eyes, pulling away slightly, to find that she's crying, tears rolling slowly down her cheeks.

“Hey...” he murmurs, and she shakes her head, covering her face with her hands.

“It was supposed to be _routine_ ,” she says in a quiet, angry voice. “Rhodey didn't fly in because we thought... _God_ , I haven't even called him yet. What if Tony...” She doesn't even let herself finish, and Bruce stays quiet, because he's starting to tear up too, and he doesn't really trust himself to say anything. 

Pepper continues to cry silently, shoulders shaking, and Bruce bites his lips and sniffs. God, being a sympathy crier is the worst.

“What if he _dies_?” she asks, barely audible.

“He--” Bruce pauses and swallows, then wipes at his eyes. “He won't.”

“Because he's Tony Stark?”

He nods wordlessly, even though she's not looking at him, and takes one of her hands. His palms, he notices now, are red and raw, and he turns them over so she doesn't see as she looks up at him.

He tries to smile at her, though he's pretty sure it's really more of a grimace. Pepper smiles back and squeezes his hand. “You're a good person, Bruce.”

Now definitely isn't the time to argue that point with her, so he just rubs his thumb against the back of her hand and sighs. 

“Pep?” Happy calls from the door. Bruce looks over his shoulder, and Happy points out into the hallway. “The doctor...”

Pepper's out of her seat and across the room in the time it takes Bruce to blink, and Happy backs up quickly to let her pass by. Bruce struggles up from the floor, knees clicking unhappily, and follows her out.

“Dr Kent,” Pepper calls loudly to the doctor. The doctor looks a little nervous, and Bruce doesn't blame him; Pepper can be pretty scary when she wants to.

“Mrs Potts,” he begins as Bruce catches up to them. Pepper narrows her eyes.

“Ms. How's Tony?”

“Ah...” Kent glances at Bruce and Happy.

Pepper holds up a hand. “They're friends. How is he?”

“He's stable,” Kent says, and Pepper's shoulders drop in relief. “We gave him adrenaline and he's responding well. We're moving him to the ICU now.”

Pepper rubs her hands over her face and sighs. “Okay. Okay. You said before that it could lead to organ failure. Is he...?”

Kent smiles, but he has a smile like Fury's: not very reassuring. “At this stage, his organs appear to be undamaged.”

“God,” she mutters, and Bruce rests his hand on her shoulder. She glances back at him and smiles slightly, then turns back to the doctor. “Why did it even happen?”

“We're not certain yet, but it appears that he had an allergic reaction to one of the drugs we gave him. The earlier sedation may have led to complications.”

She nods slowly. “Okay... Did you manage to do the skin graft?”

“Yes, the graft was successful, we're monitoring that as well.”

“Good, because I don't think I'm ever going to be able to convince Tony to go under anaesthetic again.”

The doctor smiles in that unnerving way again and nods. “I'm going to go check on him now. One of the nurses will tell you when you can see him.”

“Okay, thank you, doctor,” she says, and looks back at Bruce and Happy. “Happy, can you call Rhodey, tell him what's going on?”

“Sure, Pep,” Happy says, and pulls his phone from his pocket as he moves off.

Pepper turns to Bruce and squeezes his arm. “Thanks for...”

He shakes his head. “You really do only have trace amounts of the virus, you wouldn't have... blown up, like the other guys.”

“It felt like I was going to.”

“I think... being upset always feels like that,” he says. He might not be the best judge of these things, considering, but he remembers that after his mother died, he felt like he was going to explode for months and months.

“Maybe,” she says, and runs her fingers through her hair. “I'm going to go... find a rest room and clean up. Maybe put my shirt back on.” She looks down at her camisole and grimaces. “Can you stay here, in case a nurse comes by?”

He nods. “Of course. I'll be right here.”

“You're a really good friend, Bruce,” Pepper says, and lifts her other hand to his shoulder, giving him a brief hug.

“Mm,” he responds, and pats her on the back.

-

HYDRA. Steve narrows his eyes and looks at the screen Agent Hill is showing him.

“HYDRA's still around?” he asks.

“I'm afraid so,” she says.

He looks back at the screen, at security footage of a factory in Centralia, Pennsylvania, where huge trucks are transporting things in and out, which wouldn't be all that suspicious except for the fact the Centralia is a condemned town with a literal fire raging underneath the ground.

Which, frankly, is a problem that Steve would think today's fancy experts and scientists could figure out, but what does he know?

“ _How_ are they still around?” he pushes. “They were an offshoot of the Nazi party, and their leader died before the war even ended.”

Hill sighs and switches off the footage. “Sadly, Nazism didn't die with the end of the war, just went underground.”

Steve nods slowly. “Great. So, who've I got?”

Hill picks up a folder on the desk and flips it open. “Widow and Hawkeye are available, for obvious reasons Stark is not eligible...” 

Steve grimaces a little. He made the mistake of visiting Tony in the hospital a couple of days ago, and of course the first thing Tony did was peel back his bandage and show Steve the graft. He looked like damned science experiment – though Steve hardly has room to talk.

“And Banner, if he can be convinced,” Hill finishes.

“That's it? Four people against God only knows how many HYDRA agents?”

Hill hands over the folder. “We can give you a couple of our agents, if you like, but this is specialist work.”

“You're supposed to be the 'specialists', aren't you?” he asks. She doesn't respond, so he just sighs and sticks the folder under his arm. “Just tell me when to suit up. I'll go talk to Bruce.”

“Actually...” Hill reaches out and touches his arm. “We'll talk to Banner. Your current relationship with him might... sour things.”

“My current...? Is there anything you guys don't know about?”

She smiles. “Not much, Captain.”

-

S.H.I.E.L.D. manage to get Bruce to the helicarrier a couple of hours later, though by what means, Steve isn't sure, because Bruce looks pretty goddamn unhappy about the whole situation. He also has white gauze wound around his hands, and Steve shudders to think what that might be from.

“Hey,” he says, as everyone gets ready to get in the jet. Bruce is wearing a loose shirt and sweatpants with the strings drawn tight, and he doesn't look very impressed. “Are your hands okay?”

“They're fine,” Bruce mutters, not meeting Steve's gaze.

“Okay... Well, hopefully you'll be able to hang back, I just need Hulk in case things go south.”

“Fine by me,” Bruce says, now looking at the floor.

Steve frowns – if Bruce is acting like this now, what's Hulk going to be like, if they need him? Steve's pretty sure he doesn't have the skills to reason with an even more angry than normal Hulk.

“Bruce...” he starts, really not sure where to go from there, but the choice is taken out of his hands, as Hill yells for wheels up in two minutes.

Bruce finally looks up at him, a forced smile on his face. “Don't worry about me, Captain, I'm fine.”

“Okay...” Steve murmurs, knowing he's going to have to let the lie go for now.

-

They land one town over and have to get to Centralia by foot, which is just another aspect of this mission that seems to piss Bruce off.

“I hope S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't force you into this,” Steve murmurs to him as they enter the town.

Bruce snorts. “No more than normal, Captain,” he says, and looks down at the graffitied ground, where, among other things, it says, 'Welcome to hell – 666'. “I feel at home already,” Bruce mutters.

Steve laughs a little, and Bruce almost manages a real smile in response to that.

Things don't stay nice for long, though, and Steve's hope that Bruce could remain on the sidelines is almost immediately dashed, as they're descended upon by HYDRA agents. Bruce loosens the drawstring of his pants and unwraps the gauze from his hands. There are big, misshapen blisters underneath that look extremely painful, but Steve doesn't have time to ask.

The fight is pretty brutal, though not well planned at HYDRA's end, and it's pretty clear to Steve that they're minimally trained for a clash like this, which works just fine for him.

Hulk is abnormally angry, destroying everything around him and growling at any order Steve gives him. He sticks pretty close to Steve, though, keeps looking back at Steve when he does something, like rip a tree out of the ground and use it to bat away oncoming HYDRA trucks.

“Looking good, Hulk!” he calls, after Hulk crushes the bomb making equipment that turned out to be what HYDRA were transporting in and out.

Hulk bares his teeth and huffs, then turns away.

All told, they spend six hours cleaning out the HYDRA infestation, and by the end of it, Hulk has disappeared altogether.

“I think he went that way,” Clint says, pointing north. “I can go find him if you want.”

Steve pulls his cowl back from his face – God, it feels good to be free of that thing – and shakes his head. “No, I'll get him. You deal S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“You got it, Cap,” Clint says.

It doesn't take him long to find Hulk, he just follows the incoherent yelling and the vibrations on the ground. Hulk is battering a long demolished house to a fine dust, growling and huffing angrily. Steve eyes the cracks on the ground – this place is so unstable, it really can't withstand this kind of abuse.

“Hey,” he calls, which falls on deaf ears. “ _Hey!_ ” he tries again, injecting as much authority into his voice as he can. Hulk pauses and looks around at Steve.

“ _Stop._ You're done.”

Hulk snarls back, and stamps his foot, as if he's a kid having a tantrum.

Steve looks up at him and frowns. “You did good, Hulk,” he adds, lowering his voice. “You can stop now.”

Hulk screws his face for a moment, then he abruptly begins to shift back into Bruce, shrinking down in a horrifying, yet fascinating way. When it's over, Bruce falls to his knees, and bows his head, breathing hard.

“Hey,” Steve murmurs, and steps forward, reaching down to help Bruce up.

Bruce jerks away, throwing himself off balance and falling to one side. His hands are raw and bleeding. “Just leave me alone, Steve,” he mutters, and starts pulling at the drawstrings of his pants, the only article of his clothing that's survived.

“I...” Steve chews at his lip for a moment, then shakes his head. “No, we need to talk.”

Bruce screws up his face exactly like Hulk did minutes earlier, and struggles up onto his feet. His balance is shot, though, and he stumbles to one side immediately. Steve can't help but grab his arm to steady him, and Bruce yanks it away again.

“Just leave me alone!” he shouts, and leans against a tree, legs shaking. “Just let me get on with my miserable, monstrous life.”

Steve flinches. “Look,” he murmurs, and Bruce shakes his head, muttering something to himself. “Hey,” he adds sharply. “I'm gonna say what I've got to say, and you're gonna listen.”

Bruce's mouth closes, and he looks up at Steve, though not happily. Wow, Steve really didn't think that would actually work.

“Okay...” He shifts from foot to foot, suddenly unsure of himself. “Look... I'm sorry for what I said.”

Bruce blinks at him.

“About... the serum bringing out your true self, and then Hulk being...”

“I remember,” Bruce says quietly.

“Yeah. Well, you know, I really don't know if that's true or if I'm just an idiot like Tony says, but I think I've realised something today.” Bruce just stares back at him, and Steve clears his throat. “I realised while Hulk was rampaging through this town that he's not a monster.”

Bruce laughs. “Sure. Well, thanks, Cap--”

“I'm not finished,” Steve interrupts, and Bruce's eyes flash with anger but he stays quiet. “Okay. What I realised was that he isn't a monster, he's a child. A really big, angry child.”

“You're saying,” Bruce says carefully, “that my 'true self' is a child?”

Steve shrugs. “I've read your file, I know how bad your childhood was. You had a lot of reasons to be angry.”

Bruce looks away, and wraps his arms around himself. It isn't just his legs that are shaking now, it's his whole body, and when Steve looks closely, he can see that goose pimples are coming up all along Bruce's arms and chest. Steve isn't a great judge of the temperature any more, since only the Arctic affects him these days, but he figures that the physical changes that Bruce has gone through have probably messed with his body some.

Steve sighs and starts pulling his top off.

“What're you doing?” Bruce says between shivers.

Steve gets the top over his head and shakes out the arms, then tugs his undershirt back down. “You're cold, you can wear this.”

“'m fine,” Bruce mumbles, although he's clearly _not_.

Steve holds it out to him. “Just put it on, okay? It's warm.”

Bruce stares at him for a moment, then reaches out and takes the top. He just holds it for a couple of minutes, rubbing his fingers over the material, then frowns and pulls it on.

It's much too big for him, both in length and in width; he has a much slighter build than Steve, with narrower shoulders, and the sleeves cover his bleeding hands completely.

He just stands there for a minute, looking at Steve, then squeezes his eyes closed and sighs. “God,” he mumbles.

“What?”

Bruce shakes his head, as if he isn't going to respond, then looks back up at Steve and purses his lips. “When I was _kid_ ,” he says slowly, “this would have been my dream come true.”

“This...?” Steve repeats, glancing around at the smouldering town.

“ _This_ ,” Bruce says, gesturing at the loaned top. “I was... I was a huge fan of... you.”

“You... Oh. _Oh_.”

“I collected your comics and I had action figures and watched the cartoon...”

“There was a cartoon?”

Bruce nods. “So, you know, my whole life I either wanted to be saved by you or I wanted to _be_ you and...” He shrugs.

“And what I said was even worse because of that,” Steve finishes. “I'm sorry.”

“Yeah, but the thing is, you were right, Hulk is more _me_ than... this,” he says, gesturing to himself. “When monstrous things happen to you, when you have a monster for a father, maybe it's just... in the blood.”

“But that's exactly my point,” Steve says. “You aren't a monster, I don't think any part of you is.”

“You don't know me, Steve. And you don't know Hulk. You think he's a child? You don't know anything...” Bruce says, a glint in his eye.

“I know that--”

“No!” Bruce shouts, and physically jerks, as if from the force of it. “You don't know me, you don't know that I...”

“That you what?”

“That I...” Bruce runs his fingers through his hair, eyes darting back and forth like a caged animal's. “I—I knew. I knew what I was doing when I experimented on myself.”

Steve tips his head to one side, not sure if he understands, though he thinks he's getting it. “You knew that...?”

“I _knew_ we were recreating Project Rebirth!” he yells. “I _knew_ what Ross was trying to do, and I got in that chamber because I _wanted to be like you_!” He sucks in a breath, and Steve isn't sure how to respond to him right now, but Bruce isn't giving him the chance any more – he finally has things to say. “I figured it out weeks before, and I tell everyone that I tested out this 'radiation resistance therapy' on myself because of _budget_ cuts, but I didn't give a fuck about that. I wanted to be strong, and big, and not... not _afraid_ any more,” he spits out, then holds out his arms. “And look at me now, I'm more scared than ever.”

Steve nods. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Bruce repeats, looking like he might want to punch Steve. It might not be such a bad idea – Bruce has more rage in him than Hulk ever will.

Steve lifts his shoulders. “Okay. You know why I agreed to be a human guinea pig? Because I didn't want to get left behind, and because I didn't think I was good enough the way I was. It wasn't... selfless, not really. One time, a doctor told me I wouldn't live to see thirty the way I was, and I was terrified. I was absolutely terrified of that.”

Bruce stares at him silently, and Steve takes a breath and continues. “A few weeks ago, I visited a guy, he was given the super soldier formula after me...”

“There were others?” Bruce says quietly.

“Yeah, and I only just found this out. Thing is, this guy, he wasn't as lucky as I've been – so far. Only a handful of people tested on survived, and he's the only still alive today. The serum caused him brain damage and US government locked him up and he's not ageing normally and... I've watched a lot of documentaries about the war since... you know, about... experiments, and I'm starting to realise that what I understood Project Rebirth to be was maybe not...” He pauses and shakes his head. His voice has got very quiet too, but Bruce seems to be hearing every word. “Correct,” he settles on. “No one's innocent.”

Bruce nods and wraps his arms around himself. “Pepper's one of us too,” he says.

“She...? Oh God, the virus thing?” At Bruce's nod, he grimaces. “God, is she okay?”

“Yeah, she's... it's stable.”

“Good, at least that's something. God, for an apparently one off formula, there sure are a lot of us around.”

“Yeah.”

Steve looks over his shoulder, listening out for the clean up efforts in the background. It sounds like they're getting on pretty well, though they probably heard at least some of this conversation. Hopefully they're discreet enough to pretend they didn't. He looks back at Bruce and clears his throat. “So, uh, you were really a fan of... Cap?”

Bruce pulls a face and nods. “Yeah, the, uh, origin story spoke to me as a child. And I liked all the... sound effects.”

Steve snorts and shakes his head. “You know, this is pretty weird for me... You're old enough to be my father, Bruce.”

“What? No, I'm not. How old are you?”

“Twenty eight.”

Bruce narrows his eyes. “I'd have to have had a kid at seventeen to be old enough for that.”

“That wasn't unusual where I'm from. When I'm from.” He pulls a face. “Ugh, I'll never get the hang of this.”

Bruce smiles and pushes him off from the tree. He seems to be steadier on his feet now, and walks towards Steve, back to the rest of the group. Steve falls into step with him.

“I thought I was a perpetual child,” Bruce says, glancing at him.

Steve tugs on the sleeve of the oversized top and laughs. “You kind of look like one right now. You can keep it if you want, by the way.”

“Uh, no, thank you, that's okay.”

“I bet you could sell it on ebuy for a bunch of money.”

“Bay,” Bruce says.

“Huh?”

“Ebay, not ebuy,” Bruce says with a smile.

Steve snaps his fingers. “Damn, so close.”

-

After a week and a half in hospital, Tony comes home. He's supposed to to be there for at least double that, but Bruce is pretty sure that no one thought that would happen. Not any reasonable person, anyway.

Bruce gives him and Pepper some time to settle back in, the morning Tony returns. He needs to clean his burns, anyway; they're healing but they still look pretty nasty, and he's been trying his best to keep it from Pepper. It's not like she can do anything about it, and it'll only add more stress to her life.

By mid afternoon, though, he decides it's time to check in, and takes the elevator up to Tony's penthouse.

“Sir is in the bedroom,” JARVIS announces when the elevator doors open. “You may go through.”

“Thanks, JARVIS,” he says, and heads towards the bedroom, The door's open and obviously Tony knows he's here, so he doesn't bother knocking.

He wishes he had though, when he's confronted with Tony's naked back. “Oh, um, should I come back?”

“Nope, you're good,” Tony says, turning to face him. He's taken his bandage off, which Bruce is pretty sure he shouldn't have, and his chest is a mess of new and old scars, and new and old skin. It's disgusting and fascinating.

“God, Tony, why did you let me in here if you're not going to be dressed?”

Tony puts his hands on his hips, which causes the skin on his chest to stretch oddly. “Are you offended by the human body, Bruce?”

“Uh, no comment,” he says, and Tony grins.

“Ah, I don't blame you. My beautiful body, _ruined_.” He says it with a joking lilt, but Bruce is pretty sure that it isn't a joke.

“C'mon, you know you're still going to be number one on all the hottest men lists next year.”

“Mm,” Tony murmurs, and turns back to his mirror. “I have a girlfriend, you know,” he says, looking at his reflection.

Bruce laughs and shakes his head, as Tony picks up a tube of a cream and starts rubbing it into his chest. 

Tony eyes his reflection irritably. “You know, I've spent thousands of dollars moisturising the money maker, but I've never moisturised my chest before,” he says, and shakes his head slightly.

“It'll be worth it in the end,” Bruce says.

“Yeah. The doctor says they're not sure if my chest hair will grow back in. They shaved my chest, man! I feel so unmanly. I feel like _Steve_.”

Bruce laughs. “Yeah, I wouldn't feel quite right without the chest rug.”

Tony grins and wiggles his eyebrows at Bruce. “You know, there's something different about you today.”

Bruce looks down at himself. He's wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and sneakers with actual socks this time. “I shaved and these clothes are actually clean?”

“No, it's not that...” He looks Bruce up and down thoughtfully, then raises a finger. “Aha! Your hair's back to normal.”

“Um...” Bruce runs his fingers through his again curly hair. It grew in a little greyer than before, but Tony's right, it's back to its usual length. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“So, everything's okay now, huh?”

“Because my hair's back to normal?”

Tony shrugs. “Am I wrong? Are you still sad-Bruce?”

Bruce looks around Tony's lavish bedroom and shrugs. “I'm... reasonably-okay-Bruce.”

Tony throws his hands up in the air, then grimaces at the pressure that puts on his chest. “Ugh, come on, let's go get a drink.”

“Pretty sure you're not allowed to drink with the medication you're on.”

“ _Pretty sure_ you're a killjoy.”

Bruce rolls his eyes. “Maybe we can eat ice cream and watch Star Trek, or something.”

Tony narrows his eyes. “Mm... It's a good thing I'm a cheap date. C'mon.” He nods towards the door and starts heading that way, but Bruce holds up a hand.

“You forgot your shirt.”

“It needs to air out!” Tony says, sweeping a hand up and down his chest.

Bruce shakes his head, grinning. “I'm not spending any time with you unless you're fully dressed.”

“ _Well_ ,” Tony says, wrinkling his nose. He starts reaching for a shirt, though. “I think that's pretty unfair, considering your recent dressing habits.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bruce mutters. Tony smiles and starts to button up his shirt. He's a pretty great friend, as it's turned out. So's Pepper, and even Steve now, maybe. “You know,” he says, “if you... have a name of a good therapist, I might... go see them. No promises or anything, though.”

“ _Really_?” Tony says, hurriedly buttoning the rest of his shirt. “Why, good Dr Banner, we'll make a real boy out of you, yet!”

**Author's Note:**

> \- The episode of _Captain America_ Bruce and Jen watch is [The Fantastic Origin of the Red Skull](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfj5PXrpiFU), and it is PRETTY fantastic.
> 
> \- The Cap for president comic Bruce looks at is [#250 from 1980](http://www.comicvine.com/captain-america-250-cap-for-president/4000-20724/).
> 
> \- [Centralia](http://untappedcities.com/2011/10/05/centralia-pennsylvania-welcome-to-hell/) is a real place, which I find pretty fascinating. It seems like a good place for nefarious evildoers to do evil in.


End file.
